Unsuccessful trade outlets for its telephones and answering machines, ferocious competition in the dealer network, and overseas joint ventures stunted by lengthy approval procedures all contributed to Enfield, North London-based Betacom Plc’s discouraging results for the full year announced on Friday, but the real disaster was its short-lived diversification into the low-cost facsimile machine market, from which Betacom has hastily pulled out. Following pre-tax profits of just UKP260,000 against some City expectations of around UKP3.5m – Betacom is to put in place a programme to reduce stock levels and overheads for 1990. Despite fighting talk of new product ranges and more aggressive marketing, it appears that the bad news is not over yet for Betacom: chairman Dennis Baylin warned on Friday that the losses were likely to continue into the first half of the current year.
